1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to novel mutant protease enzymes or enzyme variants useful in formulating detergent compositions and exhibiting improved wash performance in detergents; cleaning and detergent compositions containing said enzymes; mutated genes coding for the expression of said enzymes when inserted into a suitable host cell or organism; and such host cells transformed therewith and capable of expressing said enzyme variants.
2. Description of Related Art
In the detergent industry enzymes have been implemented in washing formulations for more than 30 years. Enzymes used in such formulations comprise proteases, lipases, amylases, cellulases, as well as other enzymes, or mixtures thereof. Commercially most important enzymes are proteases.
An increasing number of commercially used proteases are protein engineered variants of naturally occurring wild type proteases, e.g., DURAZYM® (Novo Nordisk A/S), RELASE® (Novo Nordisk A/S), MAXAPEM® (Gist-Brocades N.V.), PURAFECT® (Genencor International, Inc.).
Further a number of protease variants are describe in the art, such as in EP 130756 (Genentech) (corresponding to U.S. Reissue Pat. No. 34,606 (Genencor)); EP 214435 (Henkel); WO 87/04461 (Amgen); WO 87/05050 (Genex); EP 260105 (Genencor); Thomas, Russell, and Fersht, Nature 318: 375-376 (1985); Thomas, Russell, and Fersht, J. Mol. Biol. 193: 803-813 (1987); Russel and Fersht, Nature 328: 496-500 (1987); WO 88/08028 (Genex); WO 88/08033 (Amgen); WO 95/27049 (Solvay S.A.); WO 95/30011 (Procter & Gamble Company); WO 95/30010 (Procter & Gamble Company); WO 95/29979 (Procter & Gamble Company); U.S. Pat. No. 5,543,302 (Solvay S.A.); EP 251 446 (Genencor); WO 89/06279 (Novo Nordisk A/S); WO 91/00345 (Novo Nordisk A/S); EP 525 610 A1 (Solvay); WO 94/02618 (Gist-Brocades N.V.); and WO 96/34946 (Novo Nordisk A/S).
However, even though a number of useful protease variants have been described, there is still a need for new improved protease variants for a number of industrial uses.
Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide improved protein engineered protease variants, especially for use in the detergent industry.